The Mapmaker's Daughter Read Free Page B

you kept Grandfather up?” she scolds, but she doesn’t mean it. She takes the atlas from his hands despite my protest that I have seen only one page. “It’s time for us to get ready to leave. The cart should be here soon.”
    I crawl down from Grandfather’s lap and go to wake up Luisa. “Come on,” I say, “unless you want me to say good-bye to the chickens without you.” We make a quick trip, and on our way back, we see the cart and driver stopping at the gate. Inside, everyone is gathering around the table for the habdalah ceremony that ends Shabbat.
    Grandmother brings a special, braided candle to the table, its tip flaming. “Blessed art thou, Lord God, king of the universe,” Grandfather chants, “who separates the sacred from the ordinary.” He pours wine into the silver cup until it overflows, then puts the candle out in it. We break out into laughter, not because it’s funny but because that’s what we’re supposed to do to make the start of the week happy.
    Grandfather takes off the lid of a small carved-ivory jar, and the aroma of cloves and cinnamon wafts through the air. After massaging the dried spices between his fingers to release more of their scent, he puts the jar under my nose. “May you have a sweet week,” he says.
    Susana inhales the heady blend next and holds the jar under Mama’s nose. When it has passed to everyone, we stand around a plate of membrillo, taking turns spooning out a morsel of the sweetened quince paste and sighing as it melts on our tongues.
    Mama and the others start down the path, but Grandmother motions to Luisa and me to stay. She dips her fingers in the remaining wine from the silver cup. She touches behind our ears for health, in our pockets for wealth, and on the backs of our necks for the quick arrival of the Messiah.
    As we walk to the gate, Grandmother picks a blossom from a quince tree and tucks it behind my ear. “Have a good week, my beloved Leah,” she says. Its fragrance fills the carriage all the way home.
    VALENCIA 1492
    I wake to the faint scent of quince blossoms and cinnamon, and I think for a moment it is Shabbat and I am in Grandfather’s lap. I feel his spirit breathing on my neck. “You kept it safe,” he says.
    “Yes, Grandfather,” I whisper. “I showed it to my daughter, to my grandchildren, and my great grandchildren, just as you shared it with me.”
    I don’t want to tell him I can protect it no further. Jews may take no more from Spain than they can carry. Take something useful, my daughter has told me. A little more clothing, or a piece of leather for new soles for our shoes. Sell the atlas and sew into my hem the few coins it will bring. I see the pain behind her resolve. The book is as much a part of her as it is of me, no easier to leave behind than an arm or a leg.
    I don’t know what I will do when my grandson Judah arrives later today to take me to the boat. I could take the vial of poison I bought from a gypsy on the road to Valencia and pour it down my throat to save myself the decision of whether to go or stay behind, but the thought of Judah finding my body on a day already full of unspeakable loss restrains me.
    “Go to the end,” my grandfather says, still behind me. I open my mouth to protest that I am already at the end. Go, stay, die, live—it’s all the same.
    “I mean the atlas,” he says, annoyed at my incomprehension. “The last panel, the one that was your favorite.” I turn to the Asia of Kubla Khan, a lumpy circle, with people and places lining its perimeter. At the top, the figures are painted upside down, or so I thought when grandfather first showed them to me. “When people think there’s only one right place to stand, they say foolish things like ‘you’re doing it wrong.’ All you have to do is go to the other side and look again at how many ways there are to see the world.” I am not sure if the solemn voice I hear is a memory or a whisper. “You must act in their world, even when